The Continual Dumbing Down of American Politics

Yes, the race for the White House has hit new lows, even for this race. It appears that we haven’t learned from the past two races and it’s starting to scare me. Both in 2000 and 2004 one of the biggest reasons stated for George W Bush winning was that both Al Gore and John Kerry seemed too “elite” and “aloof”. George Bush seemed a little more down to earth, someone you could invite to a BBQ. Well look where that got us!!

The whole idea of a presidential candidate being too elite is the most ridiculous thing I have EVER heard. It defies logic. We Americans like to think of our country as the best country in the whole world. So shouldn’t we have the best, smartest man (or woman) in the job? I don’t want just anyone to be president! It’s a special and unique post. We need the best and the brightest guiding our foreign policy, setting the agenda for the country, and controlling the executive functions.

This is not a wholly new complaint of mine, but what set me off was this article. In this article Clinton says:

Clinton … while dismissing economists who have said her plan to suspend gas taxes over the summer would do little good.

“I’m not going to put my lot in with economists,” Clinton said when asked to name an economist who backed her proposal.

“We’ve got to get out of this mind-set where somehow elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantage the vast majority of Americans,” said Clinton, a former first lady who would be the first woman president.

So she’s saying that she, who has no training in economics is a better person to decide what’s best for the country than someone who’s studied economics. She doesn’t want to listen to their opinion because it’s too elite. What kind of absurdity is that? Look, econ is hard and I’ll be the first to admit that it’s SO HARD that even the economists barely know what they’re doing. But I’d still trust them over someone with no training any day.

Let’s wrap this up with a great mind exercise. When you are sick are you going to not go to a doctor because that’s too elitist? Surely you should just ask a random coworker what you should do. And why hire construction workers to build new buildings, that sounds pretty elitist to me! Are you saying that he’s better qualified to determine how to build a building than the average joe? And when my car breaks down, why take it to a mechanic when I could just pick some random person off the street and have them replace the engine block. Do you now see how silly all this elitist talk is?

I just hope that this doesn’t become a huge trend because I see America going down the toilet if we keep this up. It may just be the case that my children will have to be immigrants in some other country – one that hasn’t elected some yokel to office just because he looks like someone you can have a beer with.